A MASSIVE social media campaign is in full swing in a bid to help police find an ABC employee last seen leaving a Brunswick bar early on Saturday.

Jill Meagher, 29, an Irish national who works as a unit co-ordinator at the ABC, was last seen leaving Bar Etiquette, in Sydney Road, about 1.30am after a night out with colleagues. Police believe she intended walking to her nearby home.

As police and her husband yesterday appealed for information on her disappearance, social media took hold. On Twitter, dozens of people posted or retweeted links to news stories, including ABC managing director Mark Scott, presenters Wil Anderson, John Safran, Leigh Sales, Francis Leach, Rafael Epstein, Libbi Gorr, Jenny Brockie and Tamara Oudyn, and the Twitter feeds for the broadcaster's respective programs.

Jill went mssing Friday night, she was last wearing a black dress, black jacket and black patterned stockings. She was last seen leaving the Brunswick Green (Sydney Road) between 1.30am - 2.00am heading home towards Lux Way, Brunswick.

If you saw Jill or anything suspicious in that area please contact Detective Steve Bull from Morland CIU his number is 0407 566 345, or Thomas Meagher on 0422 376 285. - Please send out this page to all your Melbourne friends.

http://www.facebook.com/HelpUsFindJillMeagher

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Concerns raised as Irish woman disappears in Australia

23/09/2012 - 12:02:13

Police in Melbourne, Australia, have expressed concern following the disappearance of an Irish woman.

Jill Meagher was last seen leaving a bar in the Brunswick area of Melbourne at around 1.30am on Saturday morning.

Officers were told the 29-year-old woman left the venue with the intention of walking home.

Police are concerned that the disappearance is out of character, and investigators are in the process of determining whether the circumstances are suspicious.

Jill's husband Thomas spoke to Channel Nine news in Australia: "She was with her friends there and the last person to see her got in a cab. She was going to walk home and hasn't been seen is.

"We have concerns for her safety. This is totally out of character for Jill and we just haven't been able to find her," he said.ABC radio colleague Tom Wright told the Herald Sun he was the last person to see Ms Meagher. Mr Wright offered to walk her home,but she declined.

"I said, 'can I walk you home?', because it's late at night, and she said: 'No, no I live around here, I know it really well, don't worry'. I said goodbye and I said, 'really, you don't want me to walk you home?', and she said: 'No, no, no'," Mr Wright said.

Searching for Jill Meagher: family waits for answers, police cordon off crime scene

By ABC Melbourne 24 September, 2012 9:01AM AEST

~Snipped~

Detective acting Sergeant Steve Bull is the lead investigator in the search, and confirms the last sighting of Jill Meagher at the licensed venue Bar Etqiuette, on Sydney Road, Brunswick.

"From what we understand she left about 1.30 in the morning... she was offered a ride home but she chose to walk home."

"She lived locally and she quite regularly attended the bars there and walked there - done it a million times before."

~Snipped~

Jill's husband Thomas Meagher confirms he was in contact with Jill through the evening, and that it was not unusual for he and his wife to make the short walk from the bar strip of Sydney Road to their home.

"I spoke to her on the phone before I left work Friday at 5 o'clock. She was in good spirits, she was going out and she was happy. I also got a text message from her at a quarter to ten," says Thomas Meagher.

He says she has walked home that way 'plenty of times'.

"It's the way we normally walk home," says Thomas.

He says someone 'must have seen her at some stage' as she was walking.

UPDATE - 8:30am: Neil Mitchell has confirmed the Victoria Police Homicide Squad has been called in to investigate the disappearance of missing 29-year-old Irish woman and ABC radio employee, Jill Meagher.

Speaking with Neil Mitchell, Homicide Squad Detective Inspector John Potter said a handbag believed to be belonging to Jill was found in a laneway off Hope Street.

~Snipped~

Speaking with 3AW Breakfast, Jill's husband Tom Meagher said the walk home from the bar to their home was between five to 10 minutes, and he had rung her mobile non-stop from around 2:00am when she had failed to return home. The mobile phone is now switched off.

Tom Meagher said she had left her purse at home on Friday, and only had her savings account card with her.

Monday morning, and the 774 ABC Melbourne community has one thing on its collective mind - the disappearance of colleague Jill Meagher, last seen early Saturday morning in Brunswick.

Host Jon Faine speaks to station reporter Richelle Hunt, who's at Brunswick Police station with Jill's husband Tom, and her brother Michael.

Homicide squad detectives are investigating the disappearance - the 29-year-old was last seen at a bar in Brunswick early on Saturday morning, and this morning we hear an update that police have found her handbag and its contents in nearby Hope St.

Meagher had been drinking with work friends at Bar Etiquette in Sydney Rd, then went to make the five-minute walk home herself. She has not been seen since.

BAD guys don't work nine to five and take weekends off. But checks to see whether Jill Meagher's bank account and mobile phone might have been used after her disappearance on Saturday appear to have been put on hold until yesterday.

Nor was the missing ABC radio manager's bag and ATM card found until early yesterday, when it was discovered in a street near where she would have been walking home.

There are several points to be made about this.

The police knew Ms Meagher was carrying a bank card because they were told by her husband (pictured above with his wife), who reported her missing on Saturday.

Checking to see whether the missing woman's mobile was used after a call to her brother was another line of investigation that might not have been followed up until the traditional start of the business week.

SEVERAL women have used a Facebook page set up to find missing ABC employee Jill Meagher to outline scares they have had in the Brunswick area this year, including one incident in which a man allegedly tried to pull a woman into a car.

~Snipped~

A police spokesperson said the investigation was still in its early stages but police would ''follow up all avenues of inquiry''.

Ms Meagher, an ABC employee, had been out drinking with colleagues after work on Friday, first at the Brunswick Green in Sydney Road and later at Bar Etiquette.

She was initially believed to have left Bar Etiquette about 1.30am, intending to make the short walk to her home in Lux Way, after refusing a colleague's offer to accompany her home.

But she then made a brief phone call to her brother Michael at the family's Perth home about 2am and police now say she may have stayed in the bar to make the call.

Searching for Jill Meagher: family waits for answers, police cordon off crime scene

By ABC Melbourne24 September, 2012 6:55PM AEST

Victoria Police clarify media speculation about a late night phone call to the brother of missing ABC employee Jill Meagher. Hear from lead detective Steve Bull discussing the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Jill Meagher. Jill was last seen in Brunswick in the early hours of Saturday morning.

~Snipped~

Detective Inspector Potter later warned against rumours appearing on social media about a phone call to Ms Meagher's brother.

"I think there's been a bit of confusion over that phone call, we've spoken to the brother certainly and the subject of their discussion was over the health of their father, who I understand is in poor health," says Inspector Potter.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/09/24/3596295.htm

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Missing ABC worker's family appeals for help

By Samantha Donovan, ABC Updated September 25, 2012, 12:15 am

~Snipped~

This afternoon police moved to clarify speculation about a phone call she made the night she went missing.

Ms Meagher's family says she phoned them about 2:00am (AEST), sounding worried.

Victoria Police detectives is hoping for a clue on Jill Meagher's path

by: Andrew Rule From: Herald Sun September 25, 2012 12:00AM

HOPE can be cruel. It can end in tears as easily as in joy.

Jill Meagher's family and friends live in hope she will turn up alive.We all do.

But anyone who walked past the crime scene tape in Hope St, Brunswick, yesterday must fear for the Irish girl with the smile that lights up a room.One of the many small laneways in Brunswick closed by police in the search for clues about missing Jill Meagher. Picture: Stephen Harmen .

~Snipped~

By lunchtime yesterday, police forensic experts in blue overalls and face masks were combing the lane and another leading into it.Meanwhile, a crew of grim-faced SES volunteers gathered to be briefed by investigators before fanning out to search the dozens of nooks where a clue might be found.

They did not yet appear to be sifting through the industrial rubbish bins scattered around the neighbourhood. Perhaps they will get to them today, barring a breakthrough in what has inevitably become a homicide squad investigation.

UPDATE: HOMICIDE squad detectives and forensic investigators have removed six bags after searching the home of missing woman Jill Meagher this afternoon.A member of the Victoria Police forensic team exiting Jill Meagher's apartment in Hope St, Brunswick. Picture: Kylie Else

Police have returned to the Melbourne home of a missing woman, hours after searching the apartment.

Police spent three hours on Tuesday afternoon searching the Brunswick apartment Jill Meagher shares with her husband as homicide squad detectives identified the ABC radio employee on CCTV footage in the early hours of Saturday.

Detectives were back at the apartment on Tuesday night.

Homicide squad head Detective Inspector John Potter earlier described Tuesday afternoon's search of the home as routine.

A team of forensic officers carried six brown paper bags of evidence from the Meaghers' apartment after that search.

Ms Meagher was captured from a camera pointed at the street from within a Sydney Rd boutique.

Duchess Boutique owner Patricia said she installed the cameras for her own safety and never imagined they might capture something so important.

"I just hope it helps. For the sake of Jill being found, I want to do the right thing," she said.

Patricia said the colour video showed Ms Meagher strolling past her shopfront on the side of the road closest to Hope St. She said Ms Meagher had her hair down, and was wearing a black jacket and high-heel shoes.

"I was confident it was her," Patricia said. "She looked different from the photos that have been released," she said. Patricia said Ms Meagher was not using her mobile phone and did not appear to have been followed.

September 26, 2012: Forensic officers have returned to the home of missing Melbourne woman Jill Meagher overnight, to search the basement of the unit complex that the 29-year-old shares with her husband Thomas.

The image of a mystery man who could be following Jill Meagher is being analysed by police investigating the ABC employee's disappearance, according to reports.

Missing woman Jill Meagher in a picture from her Facebook page. Source: Supplied

A man was pictured in the same frame of CCTV footage with Ms Meagher on the morning she disappeared, and police will decide whether the image of that man will be released today, 3AW reported this morning.

Homicide detectives spent five hours in total inside the Melbourne home of the missing woman yesterday, leaving at 8.20pm with filled brown paper bags.

The search for clues continued after the last known moments of Ms Meagher were recovered, with crucial CCTV images showing the Irish national just minutes from home in the city's inner north.

Police are searching for four mystery people who were captured on CCTV footage walking near ABC employee Jill Meagher just minutes before she vanished after a night out in Brunswick last week.

Detectives this afternoon have released footage of the last known movements of Ms Meagher, 29, who is shown walking along Sydney Road outside the Duchess Boutique about 1.40am on the night she disappeared.The Duchess Boutique on Sydney Road, from which CCTV footage of Jill Meagher is being studied.

Four other people were captured on the same camera walking along Sydney Road at the same time, and detectives have urged those people to contact Crime Stoppers as soon as possible in the hope that they can shed some light on Ms Meagher’s whereabouts.

LIVE COVERAGE: A MAN in a blue hoodie was seen talking to Jill Meagher moments before her disappearance, CCTV footage reveals.

Speaking at a media conference this afternoon, lead investigator Homicide Squad Det-Insp John Potter said the footage was released in a bid to solve Ms Meagher's disappearance.

He said it was unclear whether there was any menace to the conversation, but said he the man depicted had appeared twice on one CCTV camera along Sydney Rd, including vision that showed him turning back and striking up a conversation with the missing ABC staffer.

~Snipped~

Police today said CCTV footage actually depicted seven people, including a woman believed to be Jill.

"We're interested in anyone in the Sydney Rd area who may have seen Jillian," Insp Potter said.

"We're particularly interested in a man in a blue top depicted in the footage who appears to be speaking to Jillian.

"The man who looks back has seen something, something has caught his attention.